Conman with 'Catch Me If You Can' moves gets caught

Published: Sunday, October 5, 2008, 15:37 [IST]

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London, Oct 5 : International conman, Anthony De Clerck, who has been living life like the fraudster in the Hollywood movie 'Catch Me If You Can', was arrested on October 4 after cheating his victims out of hundred of thousands of pounds.

De Clerck, 39, a Belgian, had passed himself off as a US spook, a lawyer in Paris, a businessman in Monaco, a company manager in Brussels and a Jewish nobleman, reports the Daily Express.

He even admitted, at York Crown Court, that he had conned his girlfriend into loaning him thousands of pounds, and even committed deception.

The fictitious background he led, even made him pervert the course of justice when he gave police a false name and date of birth when arrested at her home in Whitby, North Yorkshire, for which he was jailed for two and a half years.

The name De Clerck had used, when meeting the woman on holiday in Italy in 2004, was Rudiger Sloot, the court revealed.

Cumbria Police investigating an alleged hotel fraud had also arrested the conman last March, and when they checked with Interpol they discovered he had many aliases.

Chris Albert Vermeersch and alleged nobleman Peter van Damme were some of the names he had used.

De Clerck is now still under investigation over the disappearance of 100,000 pounds from the accounts of Graythwaite Manor Hotel in the Lake District, where he had worked as a chef and manager.